Residential, commercial and industrial construction and building projects can involve many different people and organizations, such as architects, contractors, electricians, accountancy firms, plumbers, painters, and material supply firms, among others. Although each person or group of people may not be known to each other beforehand, they may all collaborate at some time in order to design, construct and maintain the intended building.
Unfortunately, it is rare to achieve the level of collaboration needed in order to facilitate the design, construction and maintenance operations. This can lead to time delays and/or cost overruns, which are fairly commonplace in the construction industry. Substandard workmanship and/or materials may sometimes be used to make up for these delays and overruns, which may not be discovered until years afterwards and require expensive and/or lengthy corrective action.
While other industries have improved collaboration between people and organizations through use of electronic communications and computer software, these gains have not yet been fully realized by the construction industry. Therefore, there is a need in the construction industry for an improved collaboration tool.